Rauf Aregbesola As Nigeria’s Minister of Interior, A Misplaced Appointment By Buhari’s Govt

BOSUN AWONIYI

There is no gainsaying the fact that the appointment of Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola as the Nigerian Minister of the Interior by President Muhammadu Buhari was another misstep of this present government going by the antecedents of the new minister in the past few years.

Aregbesola assumed office on 21 August 2019, after being sworn in as part of President Buhari’s cabinet.

We all knew how Aregbesola ruled Osun State for two terms of eight years (27 November 2010 – 27 November 2018), leaving in its wake pains and sufferings in the life of the good people of the state, which he singlehandedly christened ‘State of Osun’.

When Aregbesola was sworn-in as the Governor of Osun State on 27 November 2010, after he won at the Appeal Court against former Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola, it was joy unlimited for the people of the state with the belief that his government would era development and brought a new dawn down to the State.

By the time the self-styled Ogbeni finished with them at the expiration of his second term tenure on 27 November 2018, the reality was that the man deceived them.

The lamentation cut across all strata of life in the state. The civil servants could not make ends meet with half salary predicament, no feasible development could be traced to the government even as the state’s revenue generation was nothing to write home about.

One would then wonder that it is this same man that President Buhari gave the mantle to head the lucrative Ministry of the Interior with an array of its own problems which include but not limited to dilapidated infrastructure at the correctional service centres, general loss of confidence in the passport issuance process by the citizenry as well as incessant clashes between farmers and herders amongst other criminal activities.

This writer strongly believes that Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has nothing to offer the nation in his capacity as the Honourable Minister of the Interior. His records as the Governor of Osun State were not good enough to saddle him with the responsibility of managing our homeland.